Keys to Danger
by tortgirl
Summary: The team goes in for another job assigned by Saito. Cobb needs another forger for the job and calls upon an old colleage who is ill from years of taking bad sedatives. As they prepare for the job Ariadne starts recieving death threats from an unnamed man.


**A/N: Hi, this is a first. I'm trying to write a serious, well thought fanfic. I love Inception, it's one of my favorite movies and I know I'll never do it justice but doing this and entertaining my creative flow just helps so much. I really hope you like it. I'm mapping out the rest of the plot in my head at the moment. I'm thinking this will be about 15 to 20 chapters. I'm not really going to focus on pairings; there will be some implications here and there but this will mostly be plot driven as opposed to character, which is another thing I'm not used to. Please review, I would love critiques and improvements maybe even some ideas. **

It had been a mere three months since the inception job and Cobb was supposed to be retired. But of course the second Saito needed another job done Cobb went right to the rescue. So now they are in their new workshop in Beijing. Cobb had gotten the old team together, Arthur, Eames, Yusuf and Ariadne.

The job wasn't difficult per say. It was just messy. Saito wanted information from his mistress to see if she had given any information to one of his leading rivals. So of course he called Cobb. Cobb and Saito had remained somewhat close after the inception. Not drinking buddies close but every Sunday at around noon he would get a call from Saito. They talked about different things; the conversation always lasted from ten to fifteen minutes. And it always contained a thank you. A thank you for everything. Whether on Saito or Cobb's part.

But the Sunday before he had gotten a different call, one explaining what he needed and how important it was. Cobb couldn't say no. And truth be told he didn't want to, he missed doing what he did as illicit as it was.

Immediately after the phone call Cobb called Arthur, who was happy to start working. Arthur had been taking a leave as well. He had gone down to the Virgin islands for a while to have a nice vacation. It didn't work out, Arthur could not relax, he needed to be doing something productive at all times. Cobb told Arthur to call Ariadne and ask if she wanted in. He also told him that she would not be entering the dream at anytime and to make that clear. He did. She agreed anyway. Cobb tracked down Eames and Yusuf and they made their way to Beijing where Saito's mistress Tai Huin lived. And there they were.

The plan was to go in. They were going to be in a restaurant. Eames was to pose as Saito and they were supposed to be eating dinner, then Cobb will come in and try to get the information out of her. Arthur was to talk to the projections and see what he could get from them. But it still wasn't flawless. Cobb thought there was a way to get Saito and someone else from Tai Huin's past. But there was no way. Unless they had another forger.

"Absolutely not." Arthur said as Cobb mentioned it to him.

"It would make the job full proof; it would cause her so much emotional distress that information would just drop. She wouldn't even need to see or interact with me, that way I can focus more on a safe or whatever would hold the information." Cobb rationalized but Arthur still wasn't convinced.

"We only know one other forger and she's half dead." Arthur told him.

It was around 2 a.m. they were standing outside their warehouse. Eames was inside with Yusuf experimenting with sedatives. The air was cold, both Cobb and Arthur were wearing heavy coats. Arthur's a little more expensive looking.

"She'll do it." Cobb said. His voice had that persuasive Extractor tone to it.

"If she's even still alive, she could barely stand last time we saw her." Arthur told him remembering the way her skinny frame looked like a corpse and how she would topple over.

"Katherine's always been a fighter, get a hold of her and when you do we're going to go ask her in person." Cobb said. The decision was final. There was no getting it in his head that it was a bad idea. Cobb had already started walking back inside. Arthur stayed a little longer trying to collect himself and then followed.

Inside Eames was unconscious by sedative and Ariadne was unconscious by exhaustion.

Arthur went up to her workspace. Her head was on her desk on top of a model of a maze; her arm was covering her face.

Arthur placed a light hand on her shoulder and gave her a slight shake.

"I'm not asleep; I'm just resting my eyes." She said immediately and alertly.

"Well rest them in your hotel." He said just as briskly.

She looked up at him; the maze left a mark on her cheek. She blinked and nodded.

"Yeah, I think I'm going to do that." She said with a yawn. She got up and grabbed her coat and walked out the door without as much as a goodbye to anyone. Saito's men were outside and would take her back to her hotel.

Arthur then took his coat off and went to work on finding Katherine.

"Wait so who's Katherine?" Ariadne asked during breakfast with Arthur. They were in the hotel restaurant which was filled with tourists therefore had great European coffee. It was one of the nicest hotels in Beijing it was also owned by Saito, so of course the whole crew was staying there.

Arthur had asked Ariadne to breakfast after his long night of research. He usually talked to her about his complaints with Cobb.

"She's a forger we used to work with. Eames knows her better than we do, but she was really good at her job. She had been working with dreams since she was about seventeen, experimenting with sedatives and all that; she got into a bad one. It caused the nerves in her right leg to die. Slowly and painfully. Last time we saw her she had almost no feeling in it. The medication she's on causes her to be awake most of the time so she can only sleep with sedatives. This causes her reasoning ability to not be so good. She retired a year ago after she completely bombed a job. Plus she's just not strong enough anymore." Arthur finished and took a sip of his coffee.

"But what does Cobb want with her?" She asked still trying to get a big picture of it all.

Arthur sighed and looked down at his cup. He looked clean cut as usual, slicked back hair, pristine button up shirt with purple and yellow stripes and clean pressed trousers. But he seemed a bit uneasy at that moment like something wasn't sitting well with him.

"He has a plan for the extraction. Two forgers. One will be Saito the other…I don't know he hasn't told me. But he insists that this will be the only way for it to work out. He said he wouldn't even need to extract the information that the presence of both of them will bring out the safe." Arthur said this tightly and tried to remain as composed as possible.

Ariadne nodded and took a sip of her coffee. "He's hiding something." She said.

"Mmhmm." Arthur agreed.

"It's never good when Cobb is hiding something." She stated.

"Nope." Arthur agreed again.


End file.
